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January 25, 2013

The Varied & the Potential

Huh.

Is the Stockholm Syndrome kicking in or was yesterday's episode of The Bold & the Beautiful... pretty good? Nothing spectacular, certainly, but it just felt like a solid thirty minutes of fairly dependable soap. We had old rivalries flaring up, pasts catching up to people, and a couple working on their troubled marriage. Variety! The spice of life, and certainly of soap!

First up, it's about time Dayzee's backstory catches up with her current non-story. She has an interesting history that should be mined for years to come, but the show generally just treats her as a nice, bland person who has integrity and is married to Marcus. Who is a Forrester. Which means she shows up at Forrester Creations from time to time to sort of sit near Marcus and look supportive, and considering Marcus's job at Forrester Creations seems to be to sit near Thomas or Rick or Steffy or Hope or Eric and look supportive, it's a pretty thankless and meaningless gig.

So apparently NewGirl Maya used to work at the shelter with Dayzee and ultimately got wrongfully convicted of some crime or another and sentenced to ten years' hard time. She had no family willing to take in her daughter, so Dayzee hooked her up with what sounds like a less-than-legal adoption service and placed the kid. Maya has now been exonerated (or released early on good behavior? It seemed a little vague to me) and wants her daughter back and wants Dayzee to help her find the kid. Dayzee confided all of this in Hope, of all people.

Which is a good move. Because seriously, Hope has barely been in a scene that's not about her and her stupid love triangle for years now and when someone's in such desperate need of character rehab, it's always smart to actually show them being helpful to a friend or a family member just because. (Yeah, I realize the show's pretending that Hope's already gone through character rehabilitation, signified by her constantly telling us how she's now "tough and mature and going after what she wants," but eww. It's not working.)

Anyway, this has potential. I fear it'll last a week, but am hoping for much more (and the fact that she's keeping it from Marcus because she's "a Forrester now" -- which actually seems out of character for Dayzee to say in that manner so we'll see -- appears to be a sign that this'll be a high-ish stakes storyline, but I've been duped before).

Elsewhere in L.A., Katie and Bill discussed their marriage and how he wishes she'd just agree with him all the time and always let him off the hook, but she wants to challenge the both of them as parents, as spouses, and as people.

Which sounds nice. He fed her some line about how she makes him a better man (sweet mercy if this is better, I don't even....) and they started to get it on.

Methinks he's not so much "in the moment" as she'd like him to be. Perhaps this stallion's got sis-in-law on the brain.

Speaking of whom, we also got the continuation of a typical confrontation between Brooke, Taylor, and a lamp.

It was pretty standard Brooke/Taylor stuff, but was blissfully not entirely about the Triangle of Death (though part of it was), but damn if the two of them aren't just always great to watch together.

They did get in a great moment where Taylor basically blurted out how much she resents Brooke for having been the one to be there when Stephanie died.

Taylor: Could you just please try to see this from my point of view? Even Stephanie wronged me. Who does that? Who denies their best friend the right to say goodbye and have closure on their deathbed? Who does that? And that you would even allow it?!

Brooke: Our relationship grew and changed through the years. And we finally accepted each other. She was my best friend, too. And I know that that was difficult for you.

Taylor: So, what was it like, when she passed away? Were you at least there for her? Did you hold her in your arms?

Brooke: It was beautiful, really. We were there, overlooking the lake. And everything had just melted away. There was nothing left but forgiveness, and love. You don't understand why she chose me to be there, do you?

Taylor: No. No. No, I don't understand. No, I don't. No. Not -- not even for her husband, Eric? What about her children? What about her family? No, I don't get that, Brooke!

Brooke: She was trying to make a point. She wanted all of us to get past the grudges, to move on with our lives, to be there for each other, love each other, and support each other and build each other up, not tear each other down. That is what Stephanie wanted for us. Her biggest regret was all the time that we wasted hating each other. She wanted us to get past that, just the way she and I had.

Ah, such pretty words. Of course none of them did anything close to sinking in. As usual, Taylor threw a lot of self-righteous hypocrisy at Brooke ("Hope has no business going over to their home," "Tell your daughter to act appropriately. Chasing after Liam when he's clearly committed to another woman is wrong. There are boundaries," and "I demand respect for Steffy and Liam. I demand respect for Thomas by Rick," were some of my very favorite double-standard chestnuts!) and, as usual, Brooke feigned a lot of shock and offense and innocence.

Ultimately, Taylor declared some sort of war on Brooke and proved that this really is about her own issues and not her sense of fairness (when is it ever on soaps??).

Taylor: Your children are not going to trample mine the way you did me. I'm going to find a way to stop you!

Dunh dunh duuuuuunh! If only that meant something other than, "Taylor will go around lecturing and confronting people a lot." Do some scheming, woman! DON'T YOU KNOW YOU'RE ON A SOAP OPERA?!

LogopolisMike, I hear you. I keep vowing not to post those kinds of screencaps of her because it so often just leads to reactions to what she's done to her looks but I mean... what can I do? Those are what all screencaps of her look like! AND IT'S SO SAD. (And scary.)

Excuse me: where was Taylor's concern for "right" when Lame was with Hope, and Steffy was the interloper?

(Oh my god--did I just make an actual, content-based comment involving the events in the Triangle of Death? Even peripherally?)

This is why I can't take much of it seriously as drama. It's as lame as . . . well, Lame, and the stakes are only marginally higher than those in the TOD (and goodness knows, that's setting the bar extremely low). Taylor is only (self-)righteous when it suits her purpose, which certainly gives her no high ground here, so--why do I care, again?

I frankly think the Stephanie stuff just makes her look petty. "Wah wah wah she was my best friend too but she chose you to be with her wah wah wah" instead of acknowledging that Stephanie had more than one important person in her life and being glad she had someone with her when she died.

Do you think it's intentional irony, or just bad writing, that Taylor is such a terrible psychotherapist (which admittedly, she is, but anyway) that she doesn't even realize that neither of her children needs her protection? Steffy and Thomas have both shown that they are quite capable of taking care of themselves, and Taylor needn't have a moment's worry that they'll be "trampled."

I'm new to B&B so am fascinated by Taylor's face. I still can't figure out exactly what she did. But anyway.... Last week would have been Loretta Young's 100 b-day so TCM and ME TV ran marathons of her movies/tv shows..(Loretta Young was a very popular actress in the 30's-50's) And Taylor was separated at birth with the 50ish version of Loretta Young. I swear!! Geez I wonder if Taylor wanted to emulate a 50 year old woman when she had that work done?? I ihope this link works......http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/190/1160659349.jpg

Hunter Tylo's second return to the show (2005) was when/after she had her massive work done; she actually looks better now than she did then, though the resulting inability to emote has caused and still causes some UCG along the way.